Life is Strange - Stranger Storms Part 4
by Mahros
Summary: A short conclusion to the first book of Chloe, Max, Emma, Osira and Obix. The chance to go home is opened. One instance of swearing from Chloe, otherwise suitable for most.


6

PART FOUR – HOME

ONE

Chloe climbed out of the APC and back into the lobby of the Horizons building. Although largely unchanged from leaving it a few days ago, the absence of people had imbued it with a desolate, abandoned air. It was also now tilting. The vehicle's computer had stated the building was now at a 5-degree angle, enough to be evident from the vision slits and she could feel the slope as she stood. Significantly more sand had blown in and the monitors had detected that the radiation saturation in the construction was rising. Reluctantly, Chloe had donned a rad suit, which was still too large for her despite being tied tighter. At least they had most of the red ones from the mercenaries, which would allow a good number of the Horizons staff to be protected in the higher levels.

After only the short time at Fort Jinyo, it had been another long drive and Chloe was beginning to feel her life was confined to the APCs. A pit stop at Dead Star Station had revealed the mercenaries had passed through without stopping and she was relieved that at least one place they had been had not seen death and destruction.

"You know the plan," Chloe announced as others climbed out. There was Max, Osira and Obix plus four others, including two Wardens. Stage one was mostly about getting people from Fort Jinyo to the building. She worried about Emma. Having her daughter keeping the Horizons employees from insulting the locals was one thing; putting her where she was trying to halt graphene-armoured, rail-cannon armed vehicles with bottles of oil was another entirely. Fort Jinyo was working on getting one of the damaged APCs working again and had sent for help. Telkia lacked artificial satellites so the mercenaries should have been unable to report their failure as the settlement's only long-range communications had been on top of the keep. All of which meant Emma should be safe but she had made that assumption when going to Shimada Settlement.

They unloaded rapidly with Obix doing more than everyone else combined. Chloe had begun manually lifting crates out until Max had pointed out she needed to direct where they went.

"What's next? A business suit and a desk with motivational posters?" Chloe had grumbled in response but accepted the necessity.

"You're officially an employee of Warden Security Services," Max had responded. "Time to earn your salary."

Chloe had sworn and laughed. It was ridiculous how giddy she felt that Max and Emma were both in her life. Yet even that prompted guilt: outside, the line of crosses made from office chairs were already half buried.

As soon as the gear had been offloaded, Osira and Obix drove away to pick up more of the Horizons staff from Fort Jinyo. Some equipment went upstairs for the wind turbine and the rest downstairs to link to the machine. If the lobby had felt deserted, sub-basement three was distinctly eerie and Chloe imagined it was a horror film where the ghosts of murdered employees gathered in the deepest level. Parts had emergency lighting still working but most had failed. The room with the machine was pitch black and they had to jury-rig lighting with Larry the Guard's torch and anything else they could find.

Assembling the turbine took the most time and she wanted to simply work on putting parts together to focus her mind on something constructive. That proved impossible as every time she picked up a screwdriver or wrench, one of the others would come to ask a question. They had chosen the two Wardens partly as protection in case mercenaries were present but also to help with manual labour while the two Horizons staff were also among the more practical people. Yet none had experience of working with technology so different to what they knew that it might as well been created by aliens. Not that she had much more skill but seeing the designs back in Shimada Settlement meant that Chloe was as close to an expert as they had. This seemed to involve her running downstairs, pointing to a spot on an item then returning upstairs. If she stayed underground in the room with the machine, then those above would ask for guidance.

In fact, it was not quite as bad as the trips up and down the stairwell felt. Max knew the machine and had also seen the plans so helped there but Chloe had a better grasp of how everything fit together. Since leaving the Horizons building, she had not had nightmares of being drowned, ether due to change in location or tiredness, but room 303 still made her tense. In the semi-darkness, her imagination conjured Tyler Scarrow all too easily and no recollection of his eviscerated corpse could dispel the idea he was still there, waiting in the shadows.

With only six of them working, they were not finished when Osira and Obix returned the next morning with the remaining people. In gratitude for their help in the defence of Fort Jinyo, Kitsuna Kitaka had sent food, which at least gave them a decent meal. She was famished and sitting with Max while eating restored some of her well-being in addition to simply sustaining her. Chloe wondered whether Kitaka would have done the same had she known the attack was a direct result of their appearance in Telkia.

The arrival of the remaining employees did not seem to make the process go any quicker. Calderwell was constantly demanding explanations for how things worked and had people recording and monitoring everything until Chloe's patience ran out.

"Calderwell," she said, standing in front of him as his chin came up and he stared down his nose at her, "we are here because of your actions and now your actions are getting in the way of people getting back to their homes. If you want it clearer: fuck off."

"Why will you not understand the importance of…" he began and Chloe wondered if she had to tie him up somewhere while they worked but the other employees stepped in.

"Enough, Richard," said a Horizons researcher named Alex, who had apparently helped during the Fort Jinyo battle, "no-one cares any more. We just want to go home."

"_Please_, Mr. Calderwell," Darla Mitchell begged. "I want to see my husband again. I hate being here."

Calderwell looked at the semi-circle of staff, a few angry but most weary. He shook his head at the betrayal but stayed out of the way.

None of those present had any idea of how to treat Colin Munro beyond keeping him dosed with morphine.

Emma helped and intercepted many of those coming to see her until the turbine was ready in sub-assemblies on the first floor. Since the return of the others and their meal, Max had rested in their old room in sub-basement one.

Then, in the small hours of the night, it was time. The sub-assemblies were moved onto the now irradiated second floor by people in the rad-suits and constructed between the holes in the walls where the wind whistled through in a mournful whine. Max plugged herself into the machine downstairs. Cables were plugged into the APC. People prayed and pleaded.

With the wind turbine spinning and power from the APCs feeding the generator, it heated water, span the turbine and created electricity. Apart from Osira and Obix standing watch while linked with the circlets, everyone was present. Chloe knelt before Max, hooked into the ugly contraption like a caged angel.

"It's like pointing a live snake in a straight line," Max said, opening her blue eyes to look at Chloe as though none of the others were present. "I can open it enough for one at a time but there should be a volunteer to go first."

"We all want to go," someone said and Chloe had to hold her hand up to quiet them.

"I am… ninety percent certain this will take you home," Max explained. "That's my feeling hooked up to a machine I still barely understand using a power that should be impossible."

It stilled the Horizons people and they looked uncomfortable at the idea of someone telling them their lives were probably going to be safe.

"I'll go," Chloe offered.

"We can't risk you," Max responded as Luna stepped forward before Chloe could object that there was no reason they could not risk her.

"I'll go first," Luna stated. "Max is correct: you know the equipment and the world. It makes far more sense for me. Should I suit up?"

"It shouldn't matter," Max told him. "There were no side-effects of coming here and there's no way of knowing if taking technology from this time will affect anything. I think I can do this without creating a vortex but we have to conserve energy: go immediately.

"You should appear at the warehouse where I had the machine originally. Give it five minutes then I will try to reverse it. Throw a message through if all is good."

A short scramble for a pen and paper followed.

The machine began to hum and Max closed her eyes. Their daughter came to sit next to them and Chloe put her arm around Emma's shoulders.

A portal opened with a weird howl and air rushed in for a moment, worrying Chloe that they were all going to be sucked in. It was utterly black, as though part of reality was missing. Luna swore loudly and leapt at the two-meter-wide circle. A strange after image seemed to exist, frozen for a moment before he disappeared and then the circle disappeared.

"Time it," Chloe ordered and reached out to hold Max's hand.

"How are you?" Chloe asked.

"Good, so far," Max answered. "No nosebleeds or migraines but that was a few seconds."

It was a long, tense wait. Everyone with a watch was staring at it and those without peered over shoulders. There was an almost surreal look to the room, with over thirty people lit only by a torch and a couple of recharged data pads. Nobody spoke and even shuffling was limited with all fearful of doing something to disturb the re-opening of the portal. Chloe looked at Max and Emma, aware that all her family were present but wanting them to get back to Earth.

"That's five," someone announced and others nodded.

This time the portal was silver and reflected the light and people in the room like a mirror. It almost looked it was a different dimension, as though Chloe could step into it and meet her doppelganger.

Luna reappeared. One moment he was a two-dimensional image in the reflection and then he was completely with them. Chloe found it even more unsettling than the after-image of him when he left.

"What went wrong?" she asked. The disappointment in the room felt like a wave.

"That is weird. Unpleasant," Luna said, frowning at the silver circle as it vanished. "Wrong? Nothing. Not much, anyway. It's Earth – as much as I can tell – but why did you wait three hours to re-open the portal? I was about to wander off and see if it appeared elsewhere."

"It was only five minutes here," Chloe explained. "I guess time passing differently is hardly the strangest part of all this. Are you ready Max?"

"I do not know how long I can keep this open," Max announced to everyone. "You have to go quickly. If I have the strength and there's enough energy, I will briefly re-open the way back so you can let us know you are alright."

"Max-mom," Emma said, "how will you get through? Can you keep it going without you in the machine?"

Chloe looked at Emma then Max, feeling tightness grip her chest as though she would never draw another breath.

"I can't but you have to go," Max said. "I will stay with Osira and Obix."

"I can't leave you!" Chloe cried. "I won't!"

"Chloe, I love you both, but take our daughter and let her have the life she was supposed to have," Max smiled.

The Horizons staff shuffled impatiently but Chloe did not care. Max, however, opened the portal.

"Emma," Chloe said, barely aware of the tears falling down her cheeks, "I have to stay here with Max. Please forgive me. We will find a way to you, I swear."

"I am staying," Emma said calmly. Behind her, people were running at the portal and disappearing. Darla Mitchell the secretary went through; Alex the researcher went through followed by Leslie Peters, the surviving receptionist.

"You can't," Chloe responded, feeling like she was being torn apart. Her daughter or the love of her life? The girl she had raised to womanhood or the woman she had known since childhood? "You can have everything there. You can do great things. There's more water and food and life in a square mile there than a whole continent here. You can walk under clear skies and…" She wanted to scream. Chloe gazed at Max and could not speak. Colin Munro was awkwardly carried into the portal.

"Mom," Emma sat quietly. "I am staying. This world, Telkia, is the one I know. It's where I belong. With you and Max-mom, _this_ is home. You don't have to choose because we all want to be together. Tell me that isn't the most important thing, Chloe-mom."

Chloe hugged her fiercely.

"You are giving up so much," she said. The two Wardens, Shenykov and Wallace went through.

"Nothing important," Emma told her. "I have to say goodbye to Ismail."

Chloe watched Ismail arguing with Emma then Calderwell filled her vision.

"I am staying too," he announced. "Given this can be opened at will, you can open it once I have more data."

Chloe looked at him, blurred by the tears in her eyes, and shoved him hard. Caught unprepared, Calderwell stumbled backwards into the portal. There was the satisfying image of his outrage against the darkness then he too was gone. Chloe noticed blood dripping from Max's nose.

Larry and Ken the guards took a glance at them, waved farewell and went.

Still arguing about what Emma was throwing away, now angry at her obstinacy, Ismail spun and jumped at the portal.

"Come visit sometime," Luna said.

"Send me a calendar invite when your schedule is clear," Chloe laughed though the tears. "Thank you for everything."

He sketched a salute and leapt again to the portal.

It blinked out of existence and Chloe realised there was just the three of them present. The reverse portal opened, doubling the illumination in the room, although it was half the size of the previous one. The blood from Max's nose was now almost constant and Chloe gripped her hand. She looked terribly pale.

A small package came through before the portal vanished. Emma went to investigate as Chloe began unplugging Max from the machine.

"Clean clothes and a pizza," Emma explained then, together, they eased Max up.

"Are you alright?" Chloe checked.

"Nothing a shower and those clothes won't fix," Max smiled wanly. "So, Chloe, that was exciting but what do you have planned for us next week?"

END


End file.
